Starting Over

I moved every three years growing up, so we joked that we were a military family.

But honestly? I loved it.

I loved starting over. I felt like I could be anyone I wanted to be.

I felt like I could reinvent myself each time I moved and started over at a new school.

It’s kind of refreshing moving to a new city where nobody knows who you are.

And they might not care at all who you are. That’s a beautiful thing.

But many things come with starting over. New friends, new piano teachers, new colleagues, new neighbors…

Whenever someone asks me my favorite place I’ve lived, I never really have an answer.

Because I’ve loved each place equally. I have so many great memories tied to each one, and I think that’s what makes it so hard to choose a favorite.

Austin and Houston, Texas, brought me the life and passing of my sister. I will always remember the way we played downstairs, looking up at what seemed to be 100-foot ceilings in our living room. I remember how my brother and I threw two hacky sacks onto the balcony, and it took us three days to get them back out. I will always remember the dark wood floors in our music room, and how I always set up a chair to make sure that my late grandfather was listening to me practice.

I will always remember the day my sister passed, and the day I found her most precious toy dog in a suitcase where we kept her favorite Barbie and the Diamond Castle Barbies.

For Florida, I will remember the times at the beach. I will remember the friendships I made. I will remember the piano teacher I had. I will remember the day I got into a fine arts high school and how proud I was of myself for learning and memorizing Bach’s Prelude in C Major for the audition.

For Utah, I will remember the best four years of my life at Utah Valley University. Moving to be a next-door neighbor to my future husband. Loving and hating roommates. Practicing on a Steinway Model D for four years at the Noorda Center.

New places bring new memories. It’s hard to leave those things behind, and sometimes I wish I could return to certain points in my life.

The one thing that has remained consistent is my memory of music. We had the same Petrof upright piano growing up. No matter where we moved, it moved with us. Eventually, it spent a couple of years in a storage unit before making its way back into our house.

I’ll remember my very first piano students playing on that piano and our recitals we used to host at our house.

I’ll remember practicing for my undergraduate auditions on that piano during high school. Limiting my time at parties and social events so I could make sure that I could get into the school I wanted with a scholarship. I needed everything to be just right.

Sparks is the seventh city I’ve lived in. I hope it will be the last, but I can also picture us one day, even if it’s in 20 years, packing up and moving to the beach.

Or maybe that’s just my dream.

Lake Tahoe will do for now.

I will always remember my students, and the lasting impact they made on me. In my early years of teaching, they really were my “guinea pigs". They made me so proud.

I love hearing from students, old and new, and seeing what they’re accomplishing. Even if it’s moving from piano lessons to the ukulele.

Now, I have my own piano at home.

It’s a very old upright Wurlitzer. It isn’t the best piano I’ve ever played, but it will do.

Maybe one day I’ll have a Steinway in my home. Maybe we’ll have two. Maybe one day we will move somewhere else. But for now, this piano will do.

I hope that one day my children will sit at this piano and make their own memories. Maybe they’ll learn their first scales here. Maybe they’ll complain about practicing. Maybe they’ll play something beautiful that makes me stop whatever I’m doing in the other room just to listen.

And maybe, years from now, they’ll remember this piano the way I remember mine.

Because I’ve learned that starting over doesn’t mean leaving everything behind.

Some things come with you.